Most Economical Movie Rental Options For Your Family

LONDON - NOVEMBER 20: In this photo illustration, two data CDs reflect the light on November 20, 2007 in London, England. Earlier the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling told Parliament that two CDs contating benefit details of 25 million Britons had gone missing. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

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BOSTON (CBS) – There are lots of options for renting movies. You can pick on up in vending machines at grocery stores, there are subscription services and on demand offers from cable companies.

“We as a family can only agree on doing one activity together and that is watching movies,” one mom told us.

To figure out the most economical option for your family youi need to ask yourself a couple of questions.

Do you stream videos online?

Do you play video games?

Do you have the patience to wait for movies to come in the mail?

Expert shopper Michelle Ashamalla says you rent only occasionally, there’s really no need to crunch the numbers. But if your family watches a lot, it pays to figure out which option offers the best deal. Subscription options like Netflix and Blockbuster can be less expensive than the grocery store kiosks or cable premium channels.

WBZ-TV’s Paula Ebben reports.

The cheapest plan offered by Netflix is $4.99. You can rent two DVDs a month, one a time and you get two hours of online video streaming. For $7.99 Netflix offers unlimited online viewing, but that doesn’t include any DVDs by mail. Every Netflix plan above $9.99 includes unlimited online streaming and a variety of mail options for DVDs and video games.

Blockbuster’s cheapest subscription starts at $11.99. You get unlimited movie, TV and video game rentals. But you can only get one movie at a time. That includes 5 in-store exchanges a month, so there’s no waiting for the next movie to arrive by mail.

Blockbuster offers online streaming as well. It’s called Blockbuster on demand. But it’s not included in any of its subscription packages.

The cheapest option is always the public library. But that might not work for those impatient teens because you often have to wait a bit for the new releases.